Hi all: This newbie is back looking for some hints on how to handle this problem in processing a file that has multiline records that look something like this:
Name: Joe Blow DataField1: xxxxx DateField1: 07/07/77 DataField2: xxxxx DateField2: 12/07/03 Name: Fi Doe DataField1: xxxxx DateField1: 08/08/88 DataField2: xxxxx DateField2: 12/12/03 etc. There is an empty line that separates each record. I need to extract the records that meet certain criteria. I would really like to know how to do this in Perl. (For a simple task like this, in the past, I would just import these records into a database and write a query to extract the records that I wanted.) I've actually thought a lot about the problem, but I haven't done any perl coding that would allow me to put my woeful perl ineptitude on public display in this forum. I hope to find the time to start on this problem in the next couple of days. As I'm certain to run into problems, I will then share my ineptitude while looking for proper guidance from the valued learned ones. Until then, here's what I was thinking to do. What I thought I would do is try to read each line of one record into an array or hash, then use a conditional to determine if that record meets the desired criteria. If it meets the criteria, write out this record to another file and then read in the next record. If the record doesn't meet the criteria, read in the next record. I would keep doing this until EOF. I think I can handle the conditional stuff, but what I don't know how to do is read in each line of the record and stop reading when I hit the empty line so that I can do the conditional stuff. Is this a valid approach to take for this problem? And if so, should I use an array or hash ? And again, how do I stop reading the input file when I hit the empty line so that I can do the conditional stuff ? Thanks in advance for any help and/or hints. The feedback from my last question was extremely helpful as I struggle to get Perl to do what I want it to do. I think I'm making progress, although it doesn't always feel that way ! - Stuart
